


Happy Birthday

by 0fsilver



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5177951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0fsilver/pseuds/0fsilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locus does not have a birthday...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday

 

It became clear once they took to the stars that their lives would never come back together. The man Locus used to be, the creature Felix became—they were unrecognizable in the clarity the fog granted. Their lives went from air raids and dying comrades to the scream of oxygen as they shot off into space. The mess they left behind and the checks signed in blood. They were no longer human. More a macabre puppet of old bones and new crimes. Stitched together with each morning. Waking to the same harsh growl of a ship weighed with contraband weaponry, the lingering gasp of nightmares from their minds.

At night they slept, restless and crooked across one another. If their bodies ground together, an evening wasted on tasting skin and clawing inside one another like starving monsters, so be it. There were no more restful nights and no room to complain. Boogie men probably didn’t sleep, why would they? Hardly human, that’s how Felix thought of them. Their skin had morphed into the scales of armour, their eyes the scope on a gun. Each breath taken was at the expense of another man’s life after all. 

Not human. Something much, much worse.

They wouldn’t dwell on the past, only look to a bleak future scrambling after a sense of living. Fighting against the patient call of death with bared teeth and loaded gun for one shallow reason to live. Felix wanted money. Wanted infamy and purpose. He wanted people to remember him on their death beds and dream about him when the sun fell and the dark took hold. Felix, so afraid of being forgotten, cared for money as though he could purchase immortality. As if somehow cash would secure him a place in the world’s ledger where he would never be lost to nothingness.

Locus merely wanted to feel. Longed for a purpose, casually supplied by Felix’s elegant words and propositions. Without Felix standing in his way, standing in sight, he might be forced to face his own reflection.   
  
And too afraid of the creature waiting, he followed Felix instead.

But they were not human. They did not have hunger pains or family. They were nothing past the full cartridge snapped into place as they completed a job, or the wet press of tongue in the dark of the night trying to soothe one another. They were not human. They were nothing.

Because of this, it took Felix nearly six years to wonder about his partner. How old he was? When was his birthday? What childhood memories were spent blowing out candles and tearing into gifts? Felix had little experience with the concept, but Locus had eluded to a family once. Something, almost normal. He became obsessed with the idea. Locus and his naive round eyes, soaking in the sun as family members paused from war to gift him with their affections. A child, before Locus was born, giggling and soaking in the adoration of aunts and uncles. Perhaps siblings crowding around trying to steal his gifts. Would he have a mother? Smiling bright, with dark skin and a voice more like a song? A father? A man with a strict presence only softened by the pride of his growing child?

Felix caught himself dwelling on such things too often. Standing at Locus’ left, stealing glances at his partner while they robbed soldiers of their lives. When they crawled into their home, their ship, after a mission which left their very bones whining in pain and exhaustion. He thought of what Locus might have been as he rode his partner to completion. Sweat and worse slipping between them. Thighs clenched to dark hips and a soft language Felix didn’t know seeping from Locus’ stretched mouth as they sought out satisfaction in rhythmic grunts and clawing need.

He was not a good man, that much Felix accepted about himself. He was selfish, greedy, prideful and sour. Bitter and hard to forgive-quick to judge. He was all the flaws his Mother tried her best to ween him from, but even that courageous woman saw something terrible in him. Felix never learned to care, to think of others. Someone bleeds, they get over it. Someone is hurt, they either shut the fuck up or die. That’s the world he now resides in…then there’s Locus.

Locus, who was so out of place in the army, even then. Who had round, warm eyes and a still way about him which seemed weak. A compassionate and infuriating thing whom Felix took for granted the first time they met and was soon left cleaning up the pieces when the war broke him. It was the first time in fact, when Locus snarled the famous “I am a soldier” as he rose from the grave and survived /with/ Felix that he realized how important Locus’ heartbeat was to him. How he would do anything, take on anyone, to prevent any harm come to his partner. Amazing. Before, that simpering fuck Locus shed like a dirty thought meant nothing to him. Yet, this horrible thing who sleeps beside him at night is all Felix can think about at any given moment. Well. Almost as much as himself that is.

It’s for this reason, he asked when Locus’ birthday was.

_“I don’t have one.”  
_

_“Everyone has a birthday. Unless you actually did just pop out of the ground like a grouchy thought one day?”_

_“I don’t need a birthday.”_

Stoic, per usual, and it gave Felix a thrill to be so dismissed. Even though he fought the other, let the argument end with Locus bent between his legs and terrible sounds following. He loved it, that answer. That careless throw away of one’s own humanity. It was practically permission for Felix to misbehave.

The calendar read June the 18th, six years after their squad was buried and all that remained was their animated corpses as if possessed by demons refusing to settle. Had Felix been raised on a colony with a strong enough atmosphere, he might view the day as humid and hot-rather than their current setting of frigid space and nothingness. Between jobs, lucky that. Made it all the more easy to leave Locus asleep past their usual time that morning. Let him stew in the nightmares which drove them to insanity each and every night.

Must have been a good one, a nice-thick nightmare to keep Locus asleep up until the moment Felix pounced over his hips and woke the man. Locus scrambling to rise, gun drawn and bruising Felix’s throat where they met. It didn’t hurt. Few things Locus could do to him actually hurt and Felix only smiled and could have sang for the joy he felt for Locus’ fear so poorly hidden behind deep eyes.

“What are you doing?” Came the growl, gun lowered out of respect and little more. They didn’t sleep, not really, so he knew Locus was probably belly warm in shame that he allowed Felix to creep on him so easily. Instead of mocking, though Felix would love to, he shift himself to a more comfortable position and all but forced the small plate into his partner’s pulse.

“Happy Birthday.”

The declaration left Locus startled, unsure as he stared down to the small frosted concoction bearing one old candle fighting to remain lit. An ugly pink thing Felix had smuggled on board at their last run to the major colonies. Felix himself couldn’t recall the taste of sweets. Surely cupcakes were a fantasy to their taste buds, but Locus should still remember what one looked like. Judging by expressions, waning from confusion to panic, he was slowly getting the picture.

“What?”

“Happy Birthday.” Felix repeated himself and withheld the urge to smash the cake into scarred skin. “Today is your birthday, I’ve decided. Happy sixth birthday.”

June 18th. Summer. A time once when children were free from school and left to run neighborhoods in frantic droves. Play with their friends and draw the sun into their skin as they hounded ice cream trucks and public pools…or so Felix has come to understand. For them, this day has little to do with summer fun and instead is practically a scar on both their hearts.

“Make a wish.” Felix cheered on, holding the plate at a dangerous level so Locus had little options left.

He blew out the candle obediently and permitted Felix to rest the plate and the slouching pink cupcake on his bare chest. Concern drawing his face to twist.

“I’m six?”

“Yep.” Felix answered. “Six years ago—-remember what happened?” It wasn’t a test. It wasn’t some partner trying to guilt his significant other into remembering a special occasion. He didn’t need to. Locus probably remembered each and every day spent together in a more accurate manner. Whereas Felix only bothered recalling days where he didn’t want to scream.

“You came for me, in the hospital.”

“Sure did. Honorable discharge papers and all. And remember what you said?” It wasn’t Felix’s birthday. It wasn’t even Locus’, but he dipped his finger in bright pink icing and held the sugary blob to the other man’s lips.

“Locus.” His partner nodded. “I told you to call me, Locus.” He took the icing onto his tongue with a neat swipe, leaving little but a clean line of pink which Felix followed with his own lips.

“That’s right.” He purred, sensing Locus’ amusement at the gesture. His darling, stoic grouch of a lover so starved for gentle things like this. “So, Happy Birthday partner.”

A rare smile, which appeared more like a viper settling comfortably in the tall grass, crowded Locus’ face. There was a dot of pink against his lip and Felix dropped the plate reaching it with his own mouth. Locus’ hands quick to grasp hips and the cupcake fell to the floor without a second thought as they rolled together. 

“Happy birthday.”

 

\---

 

[Follow me on Tumblr for more gay space marines and terrible mercs](mercemonster.tumblr.com)


End file.
